The Demon's Song

CHAPTER Fourteen


Bringing Sofia down here had seemed like a great idea.

Unfortunately, like most of his great ideas, this one had repercussions he hadn’t thought through. At all. Like the fact that she probably wouldn’t be able to go home until Belial had been turned into so much soulless dust. That could take a while. Or the fact that she was going to be staying with him the whole time. In his small, unfriendly house. Which was unfriendly because he made it that way. Visitors were not his thing.

Actually, people in general were not his thing. Sofia seemed to be, at least for now. But it was one thing to be aboveground with her, invading her space, wedging himself into her life until he no longer felt like being there. It was another thing altogether to have the tables turned.

Now that he didn’t need to hide them, Phenex let his wings unfurl and become solid and visible. It wasn’t exactly uncomfortable to hide them, but it wasn’t what he’d call comfortable, either. But he’d gotten used to it. Like a lot of things he didn’t care for.

Sofia was quiet as he escorted her away from where they’d come out of the tunnels, which was unfortunately one of the busiest sections of Terra Noctem. There were bars, restaurants, and shops, all teeming with life—nocturnal life, at least. The air was cool without being cold, and slightly damp, the way it always was here. Far above, he knew there were openings where the air got in, allowing it to move through the city. Still, even after more than a year in Terra Noctem, Phenex hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he was living in one really big crypt. Great for vamps, but for him, not so much.

He thought again of the little Florida town where Justin had met his new wife, a place he’d gone as a favor because Justin had wanted a little romantic music for his planned proposal. It had turned into a big-ass battle with a bunch of vampire hunters instead, but that had been okay, too. The place, though, Mirage…he hadn’t been able to shake the memory of it. Warm breezes, the ocean, and a sweet, lush scent in the air that was unmistakably tropical.

Sofia reminded him of that place. He didn’t know why. Maybe that was why he couldn’t seem to shake her, either. She looked way too alive to be down here, too colorful, too vibrant.

He curled one wing around behind her, shielding her as much as guiding her. He saw her glance at it curiously, then at him, but she didn’t say anything. He got the feeling that she’d had about enough of everything tonight—his world, his wings, all the attendant bullshit. He couldn’t blame her. When all was said and done, she’d probably run back to the surface and put about twenty locks on her doors. She’d probably be thrilled to see him go.

The thought filled him with panic that was as undeniable as it was nonsensical. She was just a human. Just a human. Maybe if he repeated it to himself enough times it would start to sink in.

They walked a few blocks in silence. Phenex glared at anyone who stared, which was everyone, and they stayed away. The vamps had a weird love-hate relationship with his kind, vacillating between bitching about them and treating them like minor celebrities, so maintaining some distance wasn’t hard if you wanted that—and he did. He didn’t see any of his brothers, which was probably best.

Finally, they hit the street where he and the other Fallen had been given homes, as far away from everyone else as possible. It was a dead end, and quiet as the grave, the lamplights giving the place an eerie glow. The cobblestone street was lined with tall, skinny stone houses like something out of a Tim Burton film. Not ideal for spreading your wings, but the ceiling of the cave was so far up that he could soar if he wanted to. The seven of them had gotten varying degrees of comfortable here. The only one who didn’t seem to have taken to the houses at all was Meresin, but the former commander of all Hell’s aerial powers had issues above and beyond his electricity fixation. Phenex was pretty sure he’d been tortured. He just didn’t know why. Asking, though, would be a great way to commit suicide.

“Here,” Phenex said, his wing gently pressing into Sofia’s back to steer her to the left. “This one’s mine.”

It was the only one with flower boxes. Full, at the moment, of some sad-looking dead flowers.

“Shit,” he muttered. “I knew they’d forget.”

“Forget what?” Sofia asked. The warm sound of her voice was a welcome distraction. He looked at her, at her curious green eyes and the tightness around her mouth that he doubted she was even aware of. Her hair was tangled around her shoulders from being tossed around to get down here. Yeah, she’d been through it tonight.

She was still the best thing he’d ever seen.

Phenex shoved the mushy thought aside as quickly as he could, appalled. That was it. He was damn well making himself sleep tonight. He didn’t need to sleep that often, but it was obviously time.

“My flowers,” Phenex finally answered her, struggling to focus. “They, uh, died. Again.”

Sofia was staring at the wilted plants as though they were some exotic thing she’d never seen before. “Um. I would think that the lack of sunlight would be a problem.”

Phenex tipped his chin down and gave her a look. “Yeah, that’s why they have these things called UV lamps. I pull in the boxes for part of every day when I’m around and get the plants under the lamps. My a*shole brothers were supposed to take care of it while I was gone, but as usual, they probably sat around, drank, and watched them wither. And it’s not like I can get a vampire to handle it. They’re all burn risks.” He shook his head, irritated all over again. “I’ll get new ones. Wait a sec.”

He spread his wings, flapped once, and landed on his roof, where he pulled the heavy, ornate key from beneath a loose shingle. Phenex leaped back down lightly, then unlocked the front door.

Sofia followed him inside, and he quickly set about lighting the oil lamps that were scattered about the space. Soon enough, a warm glow filled the downstairs. He looked around, shrugged at the state of mild disarray, then turned to look at Sofia.

“So this is— What? Hellfire, you didn’t see a spider or something, did you? Those suckers get in here all the time.”

Sofia shook her head slowly, her eyes wide as she looked around her. He couldn’t figure out what the problem was…and as it turned out, it wasn’t actually a problem.

“The instruments,” she said. “I’ve just never seen anything like this before.” Her voice was soft, almost reverent, or he would have been insulted. As it was, he tried to see his place the way she might. Her apartment was a very human space, a cozy nest full of warm colors, pictures, seats to sink into around the TV. It was a home. His place was…well, “home” might be a stretch, but no one could say it wasn’t his. There was a cast-off couch from Justin, some overstuffed velvet monstrosity that the vampire king hadn’t liked, either. Comfortable, though. A rug that didn’t match, which he’d lifted from a store aboveground. A couple of mismatched end tables, and his bird of paradise plant, an impulse buy that now looked like complete shit.

Mostly the house was just a place to hide from the rest of Terra Noctem and to store his instruments. He’d had the finest collection in Hell when he’d lived there, from pianos and harpsichords to guitars and violins and sitars, from the everyday to the exotic. He’d played and cherished them all. Well, apart from the occasional one he’d used as a projectile. But he’d left them all behind when he’d fled Hell. He didn’t want to think about what had probably happened to them. Demons were not exactly known for their appreciation for the arts.

“I’ve been picking up a few things here and there,” Phenex said. “It’s not much, so far, but I look for things when I have time. I, uh, like to collect instruments. I always did.”

He mostly had guitars right now, but he’d found a gorgeous baby grand that was filling up what was probably supposed to be the dining room, a Stradivarius violin that he’d liberated from some crusty old bastard’s safe, and a sax. He’d always loved the sax. He doubted Bowie would even miss the one he’d taken. And it wasn’t like the guy couldn’t afford to replace it. Plus…he loved having an instrument David Bowie had actually played. Not that he’d admit it, for fear of the others calling him a fangirl.

“Can you actually play all these?” Sofia asked him, still looking as though she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. She traced a finger down the mother-of-pearl inlay on a twelve-string acoustic, and he felt that light stroke as though she’d touched him instead of the guitar.

“Of course I can. No sense having them if you can’t play them,” Phenex replied. “It’s what I do.” What he was. How did you explain that to someone?

Sofia stepped slowly into the middle of the room, eyes moving over his small collection. He’d hung things on the walls, set them on stands. He guessed, to her, it might look like an orchestra was ready to set up in here, but what else was he supposed to do with this place? Buy more couches? He only needed one.

Then she turned and looked at him. “You said you were an Angel of Song,” she said. “I don’t think I really understood what that meant until just now.”

“I was the Angel of Song,” he replied quietly. “The only one.”

She smiled, though he didn’t miss the hint of sadness in it. Phenex shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t want pity, but he didn’t think that’s quite what it was with Sofia. She seemed to want to know him. That was a recipe for disappointment, but telling her that wouldn’t make any difference. Stubborn woman.

“And when you fell?” she asked. “What were you then?”

He hesitated. It was a question he’d asked himself plenty of times. Then he said what he had finally settled upon as the truth, some time ago.

“I guess you could say I became the Demon of Song instead. I couldn’t change what I was. What I am. I was made for music. But…I lost some things in the process.” And that was a detail he hadn’t meant to share. He fought back the strange urge he had to just tell Sofia everything. He didn’t talk about this stuff. Not ever.

Whatever she saw in his face told Sofia that he’d said as much as he wanted to. She smiled instead, the brightness of it like the sun breaking through the clouds after a storm.

“I thought you’d have a bunch of weaponry. And maybe booby traps. You’re pretty good with that sword.”

He couldn’t resist the opening. “You have no idea.”

“Hmm,” was all she said, her lips curving before she turned her attention back to his instruments.

She was so quiet. Phenex wasn’t used to it, and he decided he didn’t like it. He was the quiet, surly one. She needed to stay sunny, the opposite of the world he’d been living in. Yeah, it was selfish of him to want to bask in that, but that was the least of his vices. Maybe if he showed off a little.

“I could play for you,” Phenex said, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. Playing at the club filled his need to make music for people, but the audience itself only mattered collectively, not individually. With Sofia, he wanted to know how she felt. He wanted to make music for her. The impulse was strange but welcome. It was something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” Sofia said, looking surprised but pleased.

“Get comfortable on the ugly couch, then,” Phenex said, “and prepare to be entertained.”

When she laughed, Phenex thought, it was its own kind of music. It was beautiful.

Right then, it was everything.

…

He was amazing.

Sofia couldn’t think of another word for it as she watched Phenex pick up any instrument she chose and immediately launch into a virtuosic rendition of whatever song struck his fancy. There was a playful, boyish side on display that she hadn’t realized a creature like him could have, and it was a delight to see. All she had to do was relax on what really was a very ugly couch and enjoy him.

She couldn’t figure out what had triggered the change in him. Was it being down here where he didn’t have to hide? She wasn’t sure. But she loved that his wings were on full display, big and beautiful, covered in ebony feathers and carried high over his shoulders. The light from the lamps played over his auburn hair, catching every highlight, while his eyes glowed softly. He was, Sofia thought, the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Beautiful enough to make her heart ache.

The fascination she felt with all of this—the city, Phenex’s home—was enough to keep much of the terror of earlier at bay. But it was so...dark. Sofia loved the night, but not so much that she would ever be able to turn her back on the daylight. She didn’t belong here in this strange and lovely and darkly magical place under the ground. And after seeing Phenex’s attempts at growing flowers down in the eternal night of Terra Noctem, his sad flower boxes, she was convinced that he didn’t really belong here, either.

Another thing to make her heart ache for him. Not that he would probably appreciate it.

Phenex finished a shimmering run of notes down the neck of the twelve-string she’d noticed immediately when she’d walked in, let the final chord echo for a moment, and then, with a faint frown, began to play something different. It was sweet and intricate, rising and falling in a way that reminded her of summer dances in the moonlight. Sofia listened, completely entranced as Phenex lent his voice to the melody. His song was wordless, his voice curling around every note like a lover. Her breath grew shallow as something in the notes connected deep within her. Phenex lifted his eyes, and their gazes caught and held. Something rippled right through Sofia in that moment, something warm and unexpected and perfect.

And then it was gone, as Phenex tore his eyes away. The music stopped abruptly, the unfinished song hanging in the air before he moved to the empty guitar stand and set the guitar on it.

“I guess that’s probably enough for tonight,” he said without looking at her. Sofia frowned. Something had thrown him off. She just wasn’t sure what.

“No, please,” she said. “That last song was gorgeous. What was it?”

She watched his shoulders tense. “Just a thing. Nothing special.”

“You’re wrong,” Sofia protested. “It was very special. Did you write that?”

He made some sound that was neither an affirmative nor a negative, but the way he hunched defensively was all the answer she needed. Yes, Phenex had written it. And for whatever reason, he didn’t want to share it with her. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. Every time she felt that he was opening up, something happened to shut him back down.

Tired and frustrated, she shoved her hand into the tangles of her hair and winced.

“I’m a mess,” she said, settling for mundane chatter over fraught silence. “I need my stuff, I need a phone… Do you get cell reception down here?”

“It’s rigged up pretty well, yeah,” Phenex replied. “Who do you need to call?”

“My family, so they don’t worry. I have no idea what I’m going to tell them, but I feel like I should mention I’m not at home. They’ve been known to swing by, since they’re in Baltimore and it isn’t a bad drive.”

“Just lie,” Phenex said, coming to sit in one of the mismatched chairs that sat opposite the couch. Sofia watched the move, puzzled. Wasn’t this the guy who’d been about to ravish her in the hallway a few hours ago?

“That’s easy for you to say,” Sofia replied, disgruntled on a number of levels. “I don’t like to lie to my parents. I’m not a teenager anymore. I just don’t think they’d believe the truth.”

“Even if they could, you wouldn’t be allowed to tell them,” Phenex said, stretching out his long legs in front of him. “This place is top secret. That’s why Justin was so pissed about you being down here. He may decide you need to have some sort of binding spell put on you by one of the magic-wielders running around. I’ll argue against it, but I’m just warning you.”

“Nobody’s putting a spell on me,” Sofia snapped, more harshly than she’d intended. She tried to keep her voice steadier as she continued. “I didn’t ask for any of this, and now I have a demon who wants to kill me because he thinks it’ll bother you, so I’m stuck in a cave. With vampires. I have to work tomorrow, Phenex! I can’t take an indefinite hiatus because of demons. The hospital is not going to be okay with that, I can guarantee it. And I have bills. A life. Stuff I have to pay for.”

“Say you’re sick. Say you have the kind of flu that makes you look like Linda Blair in The Exorcist.”

“No. I want to go to work tomorrow. Unless the hospital is in danger of a full-scale demonic invasion, that part should work. It’s almost impossible to be alone there.”

His eyes hardened. “No.”

She glared back at him. “Yes. I don’t want to stay at my apartment right now, so I won’t fight you about spending my off time down here in Creepytown. But I’m not going to just go into hiding and sacrifice everything I’ve worked for. My job is important to me, Phenex.”

“Your life should be more important.”

She huffed out an irritated breath. “There has to be a way you can keep an eye on me at work. It wouldn’t be any more boring than following me while I run errands.”

“You’re safer here. Give me a list of your bosses and I’ll send one of the vamps to thrall them.”

Sofia’s jaw tightened, and she felt the start of a nasty headache begin to pinch and pull at her temples.

“No! Damn it, Phenex, lying or screwing with people’s brains isn’t always the answer!”

She hated the way his expression went cold. This was the part of him that was Fallen, she knew. The part that was so utterly alien to her.

“You need to worry more about you than them, Sofia. They’re only—”

He stopped himself, but she knew exactly what he’d been about to say.

“Only human, right?” she asked softly. “Like me. I’m no different than they are, Phenex. No better, no worse. Just human.”

Phenex stared at her, his expression hard and inscrutable, then he rose from the chair in a blur of movement. He paced the room silently while she watched. Finally, he said, “You could be more. You should be.”

Sofia shook her head, surprised that he seemed to have given this some thought. “What else could I be?”

“If you haven’t noticed, mortality isn’t your only option. Having eternity opens up so many possibilities, so many doors.”

She was so startled by the statement that she laughed, which Sofia immediately saw was the wrong thing to have done. He looked so offended that she quickly tried to explain. “I don’t want to be a vampire, Phenex. I like being human. I love the sun. I need the light. I would never want to give that up. Don’t you understand? It seems like you would. All those flowers you’ve tried to keep…”

“They don’t mean anything,” Phenex growled, cutting her off. “They’re just some stupid plants.”

Now he was lying to her. Again. “Fine,” Sofia said, suddenly exhausted as much by the walls he put up as she had been by the demon attack that had brought her here. “Stupid plants, stupid humans, stupid sunlight…whatever, Phenex. You don’t want to like anything, fine. But there are a lot of things I like and care about, and one of them is my job. Which I’m going to tomorrow. I need to figure out a way to make this work, since even human, marginally intelligent me can figure out that killing a demon like Belial is going to take some doing and that it could be a while. There has to be some give and take here. I can’t put my life on hold indefinitely.”

“No,” Phenex said flatly. “You can’t leave unless I let you.”

Her stomach twisted at the way he said it. It didn’t sound like him, angry and petulant. It was possessive, but not in a way she wanted to encourage. “Oh, I see. So I’m a prisoner now?”

That seemed to break through, because she caught a flicker of regret on his face before he turned it blank again.

“No, of course not.”

“Then don’t treat me like one.”

Phenex shoved a hand through his hair. “I gave you my word I’d keep you safe. But it would be nice if you helped me out instead of actively trying to get yourself killed.”

She rose from the couch and settled her hands on her hips. “If I were trying to get myself killed, I wouldn’t even be arguing with you. I’d just go. Can’t you at least try to understand where I’m coming from?”

“No, I can’t. Not when where you’re coming from is a place that’s loaded with human pigheadedness. You told me you trusted me to keep you safe. Why can’t you just do what you’re told?”

She stiffened, his infuriated question hitting her like a slap. “Because I don’t belong to you.”

Phenex swore in a language—maybe more than one—that she didn’t understand at all. Then he threw his hands up and stalked toward the door. When he opened it, Sofia realized he meant to leave her here. All of the panic she’d managed to keep at bay hit her at once. Her chest constricted, her heart pounded. She didn’t want to be alone here. He was supposed to stay with her. And as mad at him as she was, she didn’t really want him to go. She could never stand to leave things unfinished. Even fights.

Sofia thrust her chin up and tried not to sound as though she cared. “Where are you going?”

He turned and glared at her from the open doorway. “Out. I’ll send someone to take my place for a while. Shouldn’t matter, right? After all, you don’t belong to me.”

She could hear the bitterness behind his words and realized that what she’d said had cut him. But Sofia didn’t think that Phenex understood how to have an actual relationship with someone, even a relationship as odd and impermanent as theirs was. And she didn’t know if she had it in her to fix that in a guy who’d been alive since before there were even such things as humans.

Disheartened, she wrapped her arms around herself and turned away. Maybe they both needed some space after all.

“See you later, then,” she said. What else could she say?

There was silence for a long moment, and she could feel his eyes on her. She thought he might say something, might bend just a little, the way he had when he’d asked her on what had turned out to be a sort-of date. But before long, she heard the door shut quietly, leaving her alone.

Sofia let out a long, shuddering breath and blinked back weary, frustrated tears. Phenex was impossible, in every way she could think of. This wouldn’t be the last time he walked away, she told herself. She might as well get used to it. He didn’t belong to her, either.

She only wished she didn’t want him to quite so badly.